Jade accepted her small glass of wine from the bartender and lifted a brow at the
“I have big plans for tonight,” Lilah said with a grin, licking the salt off the edge of the glass.
“Does it involve being flat on your ass?” Jade asked.
Lilah laughed and took a healthy sip of her drink. “Flat on my
Brady Miller.
The big, badass ex-army ranger didn’t look any less big and bad as he returned Lilah’s goofy smile and bodily plucked her out of her chair and squeezed her tight.
Lilah sighed sweetly, cupped his face, and kissed him long and hard, like maybe she hadn’t seen him in a year instead of that morning before she’d left for work.
Jade turned away to give them a moment, and herself, too. Had a man ever looked at her in the way Brady looked at Lilah? If so, she couldn’t remember it.
She’d dated in Chicago, usually with men she met through her connections at work or at the charity events she’d often run for her family. Similar minded as she, these men had professional lives that took up much of their time, and for whatever reason, not a one of them had sparked a long-term interest.
They’d been wrong for her.
She was good at that, meeting men who were wrong for her.
Still, she’d managed to have relationships, some that had even hung on for a few months at a time, often longer than they should have. What hadn’t happened was the magic that made her want to take the next step. Magic she would have said didn’t exist.
Except it did.
She was looking at it between Brady and Lilah. Then she locked eyes on another man entirely, Dr. Dell Connelly. She felt a little quiver, which was ridiculous because out of all the men in the land, he was the most wrong for her of them all.
Three
Dell and Adam walked toward the bar, side by side, looking like the brothers they were from head to toe. Of the two, Adam was two years older but they almost could have passed for twins. Dark disheveled hair, dark eyes, features as strong and beautiful as fallen angels. Mix that with his dark skin and six feet plus of solid muscle and testosterone, and there wasn’t a woman in the place not wishing they were going home with one of them.
Or both.
There were subtle differences though, if you knew them, and after working for them, Jade knew them well.
Adam was his usual unsmiling, serious self. Dell was much more open, already looking like he was having a good time, but the truth was that Dell could have a good time anywhere.
He was out of the surgical scrubs that so defined him at work, wearing a pair of jeans and a snug black T-shirt that made a woman want to drop at his knees and give him whatever he wanted.
But not her.
At least not in her waking hours. And what she fantasized about in the dark of the night was just that- fantasy.
He was smiling and would have looked younger than his thirty-two years-except for his eyes. His eyes said that he’d seen far more than his affable smile showed, and it had been those eyes to tell her eighteen months ago that she could work for him and be safe.
But safe was relative. And the fact was, she’d never seen so much male perfection grouped so closely together, and if you added Brady into the mix, it was a wonder that any woman in the place could put a thought together. These were rugged guys, built for stamina and the tough life out here that they all led. Not a single one of them were “city.” They’d never had a pedicure or worried about wrinkles or the cut of their clothes. They were real, as real as they came.
These qualities had a universal appeal, proven when Dell and Adam passed a table of three women, one of whom reached out and snagged Dell’s arm.
Jade recognized her as Cassie, a local rancher. Dell stopped and set a friendly hand on Cassie’s shoulder and she beamed up at him. So did the others at the table. This was because Dell could make ninety-year-old women preen and get infant girls to bat their eyelashes in his sleep.
He was the heart and soul of Belle Haven, and the rock of all of them.
This morning when she’d shown back up with the kitten in her carrier and informed him she was keeping her for a few days, he’d just smiled and said, “I know.” He’d known before Jade that she’d look into the strong, independent but down-on-her-luck kitten’s eyes and not be able to let her go.
Yet.
Lilah finally removed her lips from Brady and waved at Adam and Dell. “Over here!”
Since Dell was currently being hugged by another woman at the table, Adam got to them first.
“’Bout time,” Lilah said.
Adam looked at his watch. “We late?”
“Nope, I’m just on time for once,” Lilah said. “All my pretties got picked up on time today.”
These “pretties” could be anything from dogs and cats to the more exotic. Jade had seen her driving around with a duck, a pig, and a lamb, stuck on babysitting detail. The woman had more patience than anyone Jade had ever met.
Adam nudged Jade and she obliged him, moving over in the booth, making room. He looked back to where his brother was attempting to extract himself from the woman’s arms and shook his head. “I told him, keep your head down and keep moving, but does he listen?” He glanced at Brady and Lilah and grimaced when he found them lip- locked again. “Ah, man, come on.”
Brady lifted his head and smiled into Lilah’s eyes. “Been wanting to do that all day.”
“You flew me around all day,” Adam said, helping himself to Jade’s wine. “We’ve been flying S &R in Eagle Canyon searching for a lost hiker.”
Brady smiled at Lilah. “I can multitask.”
Adam shook his head.
Dell finally appeared, his hair looking like it’d just been tousled by a hungry female. Kicking Brady’s legs out of his way, he stepped around Adam and pushed his way into the booth on Lilah’s other side.
Jade knew he’d spent much of his day in surgery but you couldn’t have told that by looking at him. Or smelling him. He smelled like undiluted amazingness as he bumped a broad shoulder to hers.
“Show-off,” he said.
She’d organized his inventory before he’d gotten out of his second surgery. “Just trying to help,” she said demurely.
His dark warm eyes held hers for a minute. “Bullshit,” he said, letting the smile in his voice break through. “You couldn’t help yourself, Jade.”
“That’s Goddess Jade to you.”
He laughed, and as always, the sound did something funny low in her belly. Which was really annoying considering the fact that every other woman who came in close proximity to him felt the same way.
“So, what is it you did in your previous life again? Run the world?” he asked.
“Close enough.” Running her family’s medical center had been much like running a small country, complete with
